see atomic particles with your own eyes huh? Part II

So you wanna see atomic particles with your own eyes huh? Part II

Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.

(What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.)

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein was a fascinating weirdo, but in the second proposition to his only (seventy-five page long) contribution to the world of philosophy and logic (the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus) he wrote the quote above. He wasn't denying art, religion, myth, but when speaking of absolute truth there are facts (atomic and otherwise) and then there is everything else.  Stay in there, it gets less boring real soon...

Basically he went against metaphysics (sort of) and Plato, et al and piled on a bunch of stuff about words and the world and truth functions (like actual math functions but with words) and examining the world using language. If any of the above grabs you: search "atomic sentence" and there's a whole world of true/false wordy-math formula semantic whatever. Anyway, Wittgenstein argued for unalterable objects/forms in direct opposition to eastern philosophy where Forms are ever changing, relative substances in a constant state of flux (sounds just like radioactive elements becoming different substances by adding/losing electrons and particles through decay. Think back to the last post about changing the dime's silver "form" to different isotopes 107, 108, 109 and 110. Flux. Change. Pretty much the opposite of Wittgenstein's ideas, but my quest to see atoms isn't.

Anyway, Wittgenstein claimed he solved all the problems of philosophy(!) so there's no need to continue in that vein. Here's an Atomic Facts of my own: I've seen the trails left by alpha, beta and gamma particles with my cloud chamber. This was covered in one of my previous posts. Think of the nuclear cloud chamber like standing in fog and watching bullets zing past you ripping lines through the fog. Cool-but I want more!

This is where my new toy comes in: a radioscope / sphinthariscope. A radioscope is a screen with zinc-sulfide paste smeared on it. It also has a magnifying eyepiece attached. You hold it up to alpha emitting radioactive objects to see tiny flashes of light when the alpha particles hit the zinc-sulphide crystal and form a phosphor (not to be confused with the chemical element phosphorus). It glows in the dark, well actually it scintillates. 

The word sphinthariscope comes from the Greek word for scintillate or sparkle. A sphinthariscope comes with a built in piece of radioactive material to "power" it-a radioscope is the same thing but with the radioactive material removed, along with the bottom of the device so that you can plop it on top of your own radioactive materials.

For $29 you can buy one from United Nuclear-but for about $9 you buy the activate zinc-sulfide and smear it on your own homemade scope. I opted to order one first, I'll probably make one from scratch for the fun of it in the future.

William Cooke made/discovered the first spinthariscope when using a phosphor screen to look for bits of radioactive material he spilled on the floor (been there-done that). He was lighting the screen with an even about of materials, but crawling around on the floor let him see tiny amounts of (alpha) radiation as individual flashes-not just an even glow. 

They became popular novelties in the early 1900s to 1950s: nice brass ones that people took to fancy dinner parties were the "in" thing. The famous Lone Ranger Atomic Ring was a later one that tons of kids received after making their Kix Cereal boxtops in. Then the fad waned.

So how did my radioscope work?

At first there was nothing, but after about ten minutes in a dark room I could see the alpha sparks. My eyes took time to adjust, but the zinc-sulfide coating glows in the dark for a few minutes as well.  At 6400 ISO with a fast f/1.8 lens I couldn't photograph them. Digital camera: 1, human eyeball: 1.

My uranium ore had random green flashes like looking out at a vast field and watching for fireflies to flash. There were some sideways "zingers" and bigger, smeared flashes like lightening behind clouds.

As "hot" as my uranium is to my Geiger counter (which measures beta, gamma and x-ray) there wasn't too much alpha going on. It was nice and subtle and I could have watched for hours, but I didn't like having uranium two inches from my face blasting intense radiation into my eyeball like some brain cancer inducing Medusa.

I moved my radioscope off the pile of uranium and plopped it on top of my little piece of Americium radioisotope 241 (AM-241). AM-241 spews out lots of alpha and a fair amount of gamma radiation. It's what ionizes the chamber inside many cheap smoke detectors: smoke particles block the alpha particles (they're weak) and trigger the alarm.

The verdict with Americium? Wow!! At first it was a dense, waving matrix of corruscating green dots like an old computer monitor from the 1980s that was being reflected in a wavy lake at night. Green dots pulsating, then the dots would surge and swirl like a Hindu mandala (which metaphysically symbolize the universe-Wittgenstein would not approve). 

Imagine the pattern on m my kilim rug, if the rug was hanging on a clothes line and the wind was blowing it toward and away from you in billowing ripples. Mesmerizing!

Sometimes it looked as though the dots were fruit flies or tiny gnats swarming (if gnats glowed in the dark). 

So, while the cloud chamber I built was like having bullets cut trails through fog, this radioscope is kinda like driving a fast car with your headlights off through a pitch black field and having fireflies splattering on the windshield...plus swirling and pulsing like a car wash on that windshield. I have lots of experience with glowing insects on my vehicle (still no idea what the one I took a photo of above was).

The surging and receding coruscating waves appear to be just like the magnetic ferri fluid (iron particles in liquid showing the magnetic field). The lapping waves of radiating particles being emitted in all directions (but viewed as they hit the flat bottom of the radioscope). 

In this flower photo the red tips are like the green alpha dots. By their speed, number and brightness you can infer many things (like the yellow paths). The charge of alpha particles was first investigated with a sphinthariscope, and research on the charge of electrons was furthered by its use; along with the correct form of atoms and their nucleus.

Imagine instead of black magnetic fluid outlining a magnetic field, green dots outlining a field radiation-smashed against the flat viewing window of my radioscope.

With these two easy to make/cheap to buy devices I've seen the paths of radioactive particles and partially how the radiate.

I think I can see the particles too! Meow.

Yes, you can get great deals on Uranium these days

Yes, you can get great deals on Uranium these days

My (smallest) Geiger counter is a GQ GMC-300e that was $99. It reads beta, gamma and xray radiation. It doesn't do alpha, if it did then this Uranium sample from Lisbon Valley Utah would be about 40% higher! The video was short because as the Geiger got so hot I wanted to move away at high speed.

The final reading was 6200 clicks per minute. My antique radium painted wristwatch was only 220cpm or so! These are very, very hot rocks-like that old film noir movie "Kiss Me Deadly" from the 50s, minus the howling noise.

No relation to the awesome Lita Ford song of the same name.

This sample is unrefined uranium ore. I've tested a few old wristwatches and found Radium in them. Back in the old days companies would paint Radium on watches and clocks and other things to make them glow in the dark! A lot of workers who did the painting died awful deaths, but not before developing disfiguring tumors. A famous group are known as the "Radium Girls" who would purse their lips on their paintbrushes to get a real fine, pointed tip to paint the clock faces with more precision. Turns out putting radioactive brushes in your mouth is a bad idea. Radium is very similar to calcium, it has a bad habit of swapping places with the calcium in your bones and causing massive health problems.


Alpha particles are stopped by your skin. Even a sheet of paper will stop them so Geiger counters that can detect alpha radiation are more open and this fragile: the plastic case on my Geiger is more than enough to block all alpha even if it was sensitive to it. To stop beta radiation you'd need a sheet of aluminum. Gamma and x-rays blast through all sorts of things but are significantly stopped (but not totally) by lead. Surprisingly, scientists disagree on the definition of what constitutes gamma vs X-rays.

I got interested in radioactive things when I fixed an old antique watch. I fell asleep with it on and in the dark noticed that the hands weren't "glowing" but we're actually sparkling! It was so weird that I researched and found that the watch was painted with Radium. On the bottom of the face near the 6 o'clock position was a tiny "Ra" that could only be seem with a magnifying glass. Ra=Radium. Deadly, deadly radium.

After getting me Geiger counter I found another, unlabeled, watch that was even more radioactive in my collection.


Recently I ordered the uraninite ore from LifeTech and they sent it out properly packed and with no problems. It is way more radioactive than my old wristwatches.

So, besides listening to the tell-tale clicking of the Geiger counter what can you do with radioactive minerals and such? Well, my next post will be about the cool Nuclear Cloud Chamber that let's you see the trails left by the path of radioactive particles zinging through a cloud of supercooled alcohol vapor-the best part of that it is super cheap and easy to make!

How did I get interested in radioactive stuff? Well, shown above are my gold Lord Elgin Swiss watch with Radium glowing hands and hour markers and a Uranium laced glass marble. I got the watch for free in a box of 'junk' at a garage sale. I fell asleep while wearing it and in the darkness brought it up to my eyes to see. It was then I noticed that it wasn't just 'glowing' in the dark it was 'sparkling'!!!! This sparkling was a scintillation every few seconds, like a weird mini-lightening strike: kind of slow, like when a big lightening bolt takes a while to branch out in the sky. I did a little research and found out my cool gold watch was radioactive--and the reason it was is that the hands were painted with Radium, sometimes written near the 6 o'clock position as 'Ra'.

The Uranium glass marble changes color in sunlight due to, well: Uranium in the glass. Many antique (and new) glass contains Uranium for this color-changing effect. Uranium glass is also called "Vaseline Glass". It's all slightly radioactive. So are thorium laced gas lantern mantles for camping. The little sock looking wick is radioactive. 

Fiestaware ceramic bowls and plates (especially the red colored ones) are so radioactive that people break them into pieces and sell them to Geiger counter owners like me as a test source!

Name      What is it?                                                                           Distance traveled 
                                                                                                                    through open air
Alpha       Physical particle equaling a Helium nucleus                        2-3cm

Beta          Physical particle equaling an electron                                    2-3m

Gamma    Not radioactive decay, just energy burst                                500m
                   accompanying alpha or beta radiation.
                   The same as an x-ray, but arising from
                   different sources.

Neutron     Physical particle made up of 1 up quark and                   1000s of meters
                     2 down quarks.


Name   Symbol     Makeup                           Charge         Speed       Atomic Mass Units
Alpha     α             2 protons & 2 Neutrons       + +                Slow                               4

Beta        β               1 electron                                -              Fast or Slow                1/2000

Gamma  γ                Photons/                           Neutral        Speed of light                   0
                           electromagnetic waves

Neutron n           1 up & 2 down quarks         Neutral      2.2km/S-14,000km/S         1
                                                                                                 (~5% speed of light)

Notes: 

An AMU (Atomic Mass Unit) is equal to 1/12 the mass of a Carbon-12 atom. 

Slow Neutrons are called "Thermal" and fast ones are called "Fast" neutrons. 

An alpha particle is double positive "++". 

Gamma rays are produced by atomic nuclei and x-rays are created by accelerating electrons, but they are basically the same type of wave energy. 


Lead only approximately halves the gamma/x-ray amounts. A 1/2" of lead stops about half the waves trying to get through. When beta radiation hits lead sometimes a new type of radiation is created that is more dangerous! This is Bremsstrahlung radiation (braking/deceleration). Lead barely interacts with neutron radiation, water or hydrogen-containing compounds such as common paraffin wax are much better shielding material.


By the way, another great place to creep around and find info like this is the Oak Ridge National Lab at  https://libcat.ornl.gov/  which has tons of DECLASSIFIED reports of various techniques for radioactive fun. The directory names look like years, but the files inside them are all scrambled up--so just poke around. A cool file I found was "The Preparation, Properties, and Uses of Americium - 241, Alpha-, Gamma-, and Neutron Sources."